Sex victims afraid to face abuser

SOME of the victims of a child sex abuser were still ‘nervous’ about him living in the area while on bail awaiting sentence next October, a court was told yesterday.

Chilling accounts of their trauma were given by some of the injured parties in victim impact statements to Judge Carroll Moran at the Circuit Criminal Court, in Tralee.

Gustav Dahm, aged 35, of Ard na Mara, Pier Road, Kenmare, Co Kerry, has pleaded guilty to more than 20 charges of sexual assault and gross indecency against six children.

The court was told that Dahm will continue to live in an apartment alongside the family Fáilte Ireland-approved guesthouse run by his 68-year-old mother, Edel Dahm. He is currently allowed out of home for two-and-a-half hours each day under bail conditions.

Prosecuting counsel Tom Rice said the investigating garda was happy Dahm was complying with bail conditions, but added: “Undoubtedly, some of the injured parties are nervous about the situation.”

Addressing Judge Moran, Mr Rice said that, in the event of sentence not being imposed yesterday, he would ask for only a short adjournment as the situation gave rise to some concern, especially with the B&B issue.

He said the accused was living in a separate apartment alongside the B&B and it was his mother who was supervising him at night.

Detective Garda John Evans, who conducted a two-year investigation into the case, said the accused helped his mother in the evening to look after the 99-year-old father who, the court was told, was totally incapacitated.

“There’s a cause for concern, it being a B&B, so we have to trust Edel to supervise Gustav,” Det Garda Evans said.

The accused pleaded guilty to charges of gross indecency, sexual assault, and indecent assault over a 15-year period, between 1988 and 2003. The abuses came to the notice of the gardaí when a 22-year-old man came forward, in the summer of 2003. Other victims were then uncovered.

The children were aged from five years to 15 years and were lured by Dahm who offered them money, alcohol and cigarettes.

The detective said he apologised to one victim three years after one incident. It was also stated that Dahm, who was born and educated in Kenmare and is of German-Austrian parents, had an apartment designed especially to entice the teenagers and he had installed expensive disco lights and a sound system. He allowed them to smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol and would abuse them when they were intoxicated and unable to fight him off.

The abuses started when he was himself a teenager. Some of the abuses took place in a swimming pool. Others were carried out on the grounds of the house.

On one occasion, a boy of five and a girl of 10 were taken to secluded woodlands where, after taking off their clothes, Dahm performed gross sexual acts on them.

He also admitted tying up an eight-year-old boy in a bondage-type situation.